UK to scrap Feed-in Tariff scheme in April 2019
There will be no grace period for those projects in oversubscribed deployment caps queuing beyond 31st March 2019
The UK Government has announced plans to axe the Feed-in Tariff (FiT) scheme from April.
It does not intend to replace the initiative and there will be no grace period for those projects in oversubscribed deployment caps queuing beyond the closure date of 31st March 2019.
The date has been set for both export and generation tariff.
One of our Harborough Solar One installations
The FiT scheme was established in 2010 and provides payments to owners of small-scale renewable generators at a fixed rate per unit of electricity produced and is funded through levies on suppliers, which are passed on to consumers.
BEIS says at the time the programme was introduced, it was estimated to add £440 million per year to consumers’ energy bills in 2020.
However, it suggests these projections are no longer correct – the latest estimate is £1,600 million per year at the end of the decade.
Impact assessment analysis found the closure of FiTs would save between £1.3 billion and £1.9 billion.
BEIS adds: “Since 2010, our support has driven down the cost of small-scale low carbon electricity generation significantly. As costs continue to fall and deployment without direct subsidy becomes increasingly possible for parts of the sector, it is right that the government acts to ensure continued value for money for billpayers over the longer term. That is why government took the decision in 2015 to close the generation tariff from end of March 2019.”
Here at Harborough Energy we will be watching the sector to establish the impact of this change on community energy.